The screenplay as text: academic scriptwriting as creative research

Screenwriting in the academy is an emerging research area. To date, it has been difficult to study screenwriting activity in higher education settings, not least because few academic journals publish screenplays. This is largely because scripts written in the academy have not been seen as research or as fully-fledged creative works worthy of publication. There has been a persistent idea that scripts are not stand-alone works but merely 'blueprints' for the films or television programs based on them. This situation is now changing, with a number of academic journals publishing screenplays as creative research and treating scripts as texts in themselves, irrespective of production. This article explores the reasons behind the marginal position of screenwriting in the academy, which includes discipline bias, and argues for the repositioning of screenwriting as a valid and valuable creative and research practice. The article argues that the outcomes of this creative research, the screenplays themselves, should be treated as creative research texts in their own right that are deserving of publication irrespective of any staging or production. The article also discusses future directions of Screenwriting Studies as a scholarly discipline